The present invention relates to an image editing apparatus for laying out digital images in a desired form and outputting the layout result.
Electronic album systems have been proposed. These systems are designed to lay out digital images on a virtual sheet in a computer and display the resultant sheet image on a CRT or output it on a cardboard by using a color printer or the like.
In general, in such a system, images are modified and arranged manually and intuitively as in the case of photographic prints being pasted on an album cardboard. Recently, an automatic layout function of automatically modifying and arranging images has been used to facilitate such operations.
A method of avoiding uniform layouts has also been proposed. As a means for implementing an automatic layout function, many patterns in which arrangement and modification parameters and the like are set in advance, i.e., layout templates, are prepared. The operator arbitrarily selects a desired pattern from these patterns to obtain a layout reflecting the user's preference and avoid uniform layouts.
Assume that a plurality of images are to be laid out throughout a plurality of pages by using this automatic layout function. In this case, it takes time and effort to determine the images to be laid out in units of pages and manually set the template to be used for each page.
If, however, a single layout pattern is used for all the pages, an attractive layout result cannot be obtained.
In a method of randomly setting layout patterns for the respective pages, the overall arrangement of an album is excessively complicated in consideration of the delimitation of events and pages. More specifically, when, for example, 10 images associated with an event A and 14 images associated with an event B are to be continuously laid out on a plurality of pages, the 10th and 11th images are preferably laid out on different pages. In the method of randomly setting layout patterns for the respective pages, a problem is posed in this point.